Surges carry Sacred Heart

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They had kept their cool all night against one of their chief rivals in the West Catholic Athletic League.

But when Sacred Heart Cathedral girls’ basketball coach Brian Harrigan led his team off the court after an impressive 50-38 home win over Mitty on Thursday, he finally allowed himself a smile and a triumphant fist-pump.

Jazmine Jackson scored 17 points for the Irish (19-2, 11-0 WCAL), who never trailed and outscored the Monarchs 13-4 in the fourth quarter in a commanding performance.

"This is our biggest game of the season, one we were really looking forward to," Sacred Heart sophomore guard Ki-Ki Moore said. "We had to play as hard as we could."

The Irish scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter to take a 44-37 advantage and held high-scoring Mitty scoreless in the period until 2:42 remained. The fast start continued a game-long trend for Sacred Heart, which raced out to a 6-0 lead to open the game, went on an 11-5 spurt at the start of the second quarter and scored the first seven points of the second half.

The Monarchs (18-3, 9-2) were able to counter each of the first three runs in a game that was tied 27-27 at halftime, but the Irish played stifling defense down the stretch and hit six of eight free-throw attempts in the final 2 minutes to seal the outcome.

Moore had nine points and seven rebounds for Sacred Heart and did a masterful job of controlling the tempo. Monique Calvello added eight points for the Irish, and Lauren Bell (seven points) played great defense on Oklahoma-bound Mitty guard Danielle Robinson. Robinson finished with 11 points, but had just four in the second half.

"You never can fully stop Danielle, but Lauren did a great job with a lot of help from her friends," Harrigan said. "I thought our intensity was really good in the second half."

St. Ignatius 65, St. Francis 47

Rachel Hatch drilled three 3-pointers en route to 18 points as the Wildcats (16-5, 8-3) used a big second quarter to beat the Lancers (9-13, 6-5). Nicole Canepa added 13 points, while Addy Schiavo and Erin Grady each had 10 for St. Ignatius. Grady also had nine rebounds.

The Wildcats clinged to a 12-8 lead after the first quarter, but Hatch and Maggie McCarthy each scored five points and Kerry Grady had all four of her points as SI outscored the Lancers 20-9 in the second.

— Staff report

ACADEMIC ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

Washington led 21-18 at the half, but Burton, led by Mone Peoples’ 13 second-half points, rallied and took its first lead of the game with 2:54 remaining in the fourth as Sophia Wong’s driving layup put the Pumas up 35-34.

Truong answered with two foul shots for the Eagles and Rachelle Hwee nailed a long 3-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer with 25 seconds left in the game to put Washington up 39-35.

"I thought we played pretty well tonight," Eagles coach Vince Wong said. "We have to do a better job of putting teams away in the second half after we get a lead. Fortunately, we were able to come back and finish the game tonight."

— Will Reisman

BAY COUNTIES LEAGUE

Despite having a 16-8 advantage heading into the second quarter, the Cubs were only up 20-19 at the half, having fallen victim to Drew’s strong rebounding and outside shooting. But the Cubs emerged from halftime more energized and aggressive, stealing the ball six times and expanding their lead to 18 by the end of the third quarter.

Drew held the Cubs to eight points in the final quarter, but simply could not gain the offensive momentum to overcome the deficit.

"Obviously, the first half wasn’t really great," Cubs coach Richard Hata said. "I told the team to focus. We were able to play some better defense [in the second half]."